Good morning…
In lingering silence, I am drawn back to an email. “I will miss our Monday visit to your living room this week, but thought you might enjoy this blessing as much as I do,” she wrote. “Hope all is well in your busy world.”
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Blessing from Bishop Rob Wright
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done to bring justice and kindness to all our children and to the poor.
In the name of the Triune + God. Amen.
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In this stagnant stillness I feel the discomfort of no easy answers. Here and now the real me is exposed. I am not as angry as I ought to be at injustice, oppression, exploitation. I rarely shed tears or reach out to those suffering the pain of rejection, hunger, war. Sometimes I just don’t feel foolish enough to think I can make a dent of a difference in our overwhelmingly needy world.
Words read aloud last week in our living room come back to haunt me now: “As Mary Oliver puts it, ‘What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'”
My truest answer becomes my prayer: I plan to wait expectantly with God, trusting the winds of discomfort, anger, tears, or foolishness to grow in strength, to fill my sails, when God’s time is right. Until then, LORD, keep me surrendered, silent, still.
God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing. You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from. True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction (Psalm 23:1-3, MSG).
…Sue…
